Warming to her topic—and to the barely visible return of his smile—she went on. “Maybe the teshuva is more like the frat boy who shows up hooting and hollering, but fifteen minutes later, he’s puking between your platform heels. If you’d ever tried to jump backwards without warning in platform heels, you’d know what a bitch it is, and you can bet he doesn’t remember to tip. And then it’s just you dancing again.”
“What a colorful array of customers.”
“Yeah.” She brooded a moment, thinking of the ones that hadn’t made it out of the Shimmy Shack. What a terrible place to die. “I’m sorry I puked on you, by the way. I always hate that.”
“So you said. It was just bilge water. I was already soaked with it.”
She smacked her lips. “I’d actually pay eight bucks for one of those nasty energy drinks right now. Heck, I’d pay ten.”
He frowned. “Do you feel all right?”
“Other than having recently drowned, you mean?” When the tense set of his body didn’t change at her teasing, she gave it a little more thought. “I feel thirsty and sad and gross and stupid for losing the backpack, and cold and—”
“No teetering on the verge of insanity?”
“Uh . . .”
“Even you’d recognize it.”
“What? I said ‘heck’ instead of ‘hell,’ and you think I’m losing it?” She scowled at him. “I’m feeling a little mad, but not crazy, no.”
He relaxed—as much as he ever relaxed anyway. “By the clarity of your reven after possession, the teshuva seemed well integrated in you. But you haven’t even had a chance to sleep since its ascension, and the league doesn’t know enough about female talya to be sure the absence of your demon’s artifact might not put you at risk.”
“What? If a girl doesn’t have her jewelry, she freaks out? I’ve heard of feeling naked without earrings, but not insane.”
He slanted a glance at her. “Your ears aren’t pierced.”
He’d been looking at her ears? “I don’t mind feeling naked.”
He dragged his fingers through the waves of his hair. Somehow he’d managed to come out of the mucky pool looking like a sexy swimsuit-calendar model, all beach tousled hair and glistening skin. Except for the soaked jeans clinging to his hips. Which would just make him a sexy jeans model.
The flush of heat through her body should have been welcome in the cavelike chill, but she didn’t want to want him. She had enough troubles without wanting things she couldn’t win with a flash of flesh.
But she could make him squirm. “I have enough holes in my body without adding more voluntarily.”
“What about the burns on your legs?”
She stopped as if she’d run into one of the black walls.
Fucker, bringing that up.
He turned back to face her. “You just going to stand there?” His voice bounced around the curved tunnel until it seemed to come from all directions. “Refusing to get up out of your own darkness wins you no points, Nim, not even with the tenebrae.”
When she didn’t answer, he stalked toward her. As he approached, her reven pulsed brighter and the old scars ached.
He kept coming until he was right inside the circle of her arms, had she been that kind of dancer. He didn’t touch her. But he didn’t have to. His gaze weighed on her heavier than Mobi’s coils. “Not so long ago, someone was stubbing out cigarettes in your skin. Who else hurt you, Nim?”
She lowered her eyes. Around the reven, her flesh seemed to fade, drifting into another realm. The small, round scars, which had been almost invisible, glimmered white as stars in the void.
Man, why had her thrall demon picked a missionary man, of all people?
She gazed up at him through her lashes, then took the last step into his space. “Speaking of languishing in your heart of darkness, how long did you stay in the jungle after your wife died?”
He half turned, as if she had struck him, and the curling lines of his demon’s mark flared in answer. “Long enough to know it didn’t help. But why listen to me? Between the burning and the drowning, I’m sure you have a few lives left.”
“Did you just call me a pussy?”
“Would you prefer—?” He bit back the next word.
She goggled. “You were about to call me a bitch too?”
He rubbed his neck where the reven pulsed his anger. “How did you ever make any tips with that mouth?”
“No one asked me to use it to talk before.” She thought he might pull out his wallet to shut her up.
Instead he wheeled away and started walking again. “You need to contain the fire. And the dark deeps, for that matter.”
“Then quit provoking me.” She stomped after him.
“Me? Provoke you?” He hesitated. “You’re right. We’re like a nuclear reactor—precariously balanced destruction on the verge of total annihilation. We can’t melt down or we’ll take the world with us.”
She paced at his side in silence a moment as she thought. She wouldn’t make him pay for that moment. “I wouldn’t want to take out the whole world,” she said finally. “Just parts of it.”
His lips twitched. She was close enough to see how the ebb and flow of his reven had settled into rhythm with hers. “Maybe the parts with the tenebrae.”
“That’d be good.” And maybe, just a little bit, she’d like to melt with him.
“Would you take out the balding fat man and the frat boy? And the man who raped you?”
So he was testing her. Maybe repentance needed a booster shot. “I’m over it. I’m over the human fire extinguisher thing too. No more matches for me.”
He slowed but didn’t stop. “Some of the scars aren’t that old.”
Her fingers twitched to reach down and rub the faded wounds. “They look ancient now.”
“That was the demon’s doing, not yours.”
Irritation quickened her steps, and she stumbled once as the beat of their matching light show faltered. Like she needed the reminder of the darkness in her. “I did do it. I snuffed out matches on myself. I liked the pain, okay? But I’m getting plenty of that from other sources now.” She gave him a significant look.
Then wished she hadn’t when he stumbled to a halt, his face stricken. “I don’t understand.”
She sighed and walked past him. “I suppose you haven’t had much reason to read up on the adult expression of childhood sociosexual traumas. I’m textbook.”
“But—” He hastened to catch up.
“There’s nothing to understand,” she said. “I knew it was fucked-up. And I didn’t care.”
“The same way you became a stripper.”
“Weren’t you listening when I explained about proudly owning my body?”
“That song and dance? No, I didn’t listen. But I watched.And what I saw wasn’t about pride or pleasure.”
They came to a junction, both paths equally dark. He didn’t hesitate, and she fell behind a step, her way lit by the quiet glow of the reven on his bare back.
“Sometimes,” she admitted, “I wasn’t sure who owned it. So I started putting out matches on my skin to see who jumped. It was always kind of a relief to see the scars. They meant I was still here.” Her voice bounced off the hard walls and fractured. “How did that old song go? ‘Nobody here but us chickens.’ ”
Except now, of course, there was the demon, which owned her, body and soul.